Babes in Toyland!

toyland-9152, originally uploaded by Alta Marie.

I just closed a production of Babes in Toyland at Lincoln Center, here are some behind-the-scenes pictures-- a little peek at my "other" life as a performer.

For the full gallery, visit my website click on galleries then Babes in Toyland

John in Central Park

john-1, originally uploaded by Alta Marie.

Back when everything was still green.....
remember?

Don't you want to work with her?

brookesmilecolor, originally uploaded by Alta Marie.

So friendly :)

Black & white version

brookeshoulderbw, originally uploaded by Alta Marie.

Closeup

brookeshouldercrop, originally uploaded by Alta Marie.

Brooke's final retouches!

brookeshouldercolor, originally uploaded by Alta Marie.

So glamorous! :)

Sarasota photo shoot

maria-8598, originally uploaded by Alta Marie.

I was in Sarasota this weekend for my birthday and brought some equipment to do a session with Maria-- Here's one of my faves for her session. We were worried at first that we might be abandoned by the Florida sun on Saturday, but after a quick rain (AND a dolphin-sighting!) the sun returned and we got some wonderful light.

I wish I could have a little patch of Florida to shoot in all the time...
Also, a dolphin.

so lovely!!

Swinging from a lampost at the corner of the street...

joncp-8119, originally uploaded by Alta Marie.

This weekend in central park.

Doesn't it seem like the fall will last forever in NYC right now? I sure hope it does...

Don't get me started.....

april-4465, originally uploaded by Alta Marie.

I can't believe that it's taken me months to post some of my favorites from April's session. Isn't this lovely?? She has a gorgeous voice, first of all (lyric sop). So warm and rich. We sang together at Des Moines, and one of the great tragedies of the summer was having to miss her Thais scene in order to get my hammer-pants on in time for my Italian Girl scene. Alas... ;)

Headshot session with Lucas

lucas-6816, originally uploaded by Alta Marie.

Lucas and I went to Eastman together. Since then much has changed and much has not. He is no longer swinging dinner ingredients into my apartment window via a self-rigged pulley system made of my brother's tiny cowboy hat and telephone wire. He is, however still singing like a rock star and taking it global. Here's one of my faves from his session (unedited). More to come very soon....

Catch him if you can stateside as Don Giovanni in New Orleans or Santa Fe. Many many more to come, I'm sure!

Glorious!

megan-7263, originally uploaded by Alta Marie.

Megan and I did a studio session before we met up with John in the park for his headshots and for their engagement session. I LOVE her pics.
Here's one of my favorites, again pre-editing-- look at those eyes!

Love the tie!

John-7460, originally uploaded by Alta Marie.

Here's one of my fave's from John's headshot session. In addition to loving the session, I spent a great deal of time loving the tie.... I studied it intently, a replica will soon grace the photo pages of my "finished objects" gallery
This is unedited. just natural great face :)

Engagement session

John & Megan, originally uploaded by Alta Marie.

John and Megan just moved up to NYC from Texas this fall. Megan is at MSM and is a very fun and spunky mezzo. (Did I just use the word spunky? yes. yes I did.)

We trotted about Central Park on a gorgeous fall Sunday. The day after John and his choir participated in the Bernstein Mass at Carnegie Hall. Here's one from their session... many more to come, or follow the link.

Enid's Apple Pie contest!

Today Joey (my brother) and I entered an apple pie in Enid's apple pie contest. It was a super busy day and we had to take the pie directly out of the oven and run it over there in time for the 6:00 deadline. The whole time, I imagined tripping and falling face first into a steaming hot pie on the sidewalk. I didn't.They were featuring "foods-on-a-stick" so we had corndogs and caramel apples. Then we waited while they judged the pies.... It was so crowded that we didn't get to see who won :(
I sent Joey into the fray to retrieve the pie, but it was pretty well gutted by the time he got it back. Then on the way out the door we were shanghaied by more people with forks. It was fun :)

Joey said my pie should've at least won "Best Personality"This was my favorite! not sure whether or not it won anything, because it was too crowded to see the winners.

Amol and Sarah's wedding

Amol and Sarah live here in Brooklyn and we're so glad. We've had many lovely meals together! Their wedding was gorgeous, and made me homesick-- it was in MA and the fall leaves were perfect. Everyone was so joyful and there was tons of dancing! Such a celebratory event.
It's a long time since Worcester Academy!

Courtney and Brian's Wedding

Courtney and I met at "German Camp" 10 years ago. We went up to Middlebury and took a pledge to speak only German for 7 weeks. At the end of the session Courtney won a prize and I knew how to say "smarty-pants" :) I met Brian at UT when he was singing Onegin with Drake, and got to know him more when I joined them at Texas the next year.

They are so great together, and they live in Philly now which means that we still will get to see them! Their wedding was beautiful-- an outdoor ceremony, and indoors at the reception there were 1,000 paper cranes that Courtney and her family and friends had folded. It was really beautiful and we were so glad to be there.

Updates!

I have been so busy during the month of October, and loving it! So many weddings, and headshots and a pie baking contest, and voice lessons and Purcell!

Also found out that I'll be performing in Babes in Toyland (Victor Herbert) at Avery Fisher Hall in Lincoln Center. Can't wait. So happy when I found out that I get to sing a bit of the title song, which I didn't know I knew until I heard it and was overwhelmed with nostalgia :) Operetta is like that... so familiar and strange!

OK let's get to the pics.

Doctor Atomic Rush

In case you haven't heard: Met's prime orchestra tickets (usually $175 - $220) for Doctor Atomic will be made available to the public at $30.

The special Doctor Atomic Rush Ticket program will offer an additional
minimum of 200 seats for each of the nine performances of the John Adams
work. All Doctor Atomic Rush Tickets will be available at the Box
Office, as follows:

12 noon day of performance for weekdays
10 a.m. day of performance for matinees
2 p.m. day of performance for Saturday evenings

Schedule:

• Monday, October 13, 2008, 8:00 pm
• Saturday, October 18, 2008, 1:00 pm
• Tuesday, October 21, 2008, 8:00 pm
• Saturday, October 25, 2008, 8:30 pm
• Thursday, October 30, 2008, 8:00 pm
• Saturday, November 1, 2008, 8:30 pm
• Wednesday, November 5, 2008, 8:00 pm
• Saturday, November 8, 2008, 1:00 pm
  
• Thursday, November 13, 2008, 8:00 pm

  photo courtesy of www.metoperafamily.org
  

Shotgun wedding

We went down to Texas a couple weeks ago for Josh and Erin's wedding. We met Josh while at UT. He and his roomate Joseph (Drake's friend from Vandy) kept a scythe at the fireplace, a bowl of empty Smint boxes on the coffee table and one time he and Drake threw our couch off of the third story balcony (but didn't TAPE IT! fools....) He and Joseph co-wrote the law school musical revue for several years. We ate many burritos, and much queso. We miss them alot. We met Erin and got to spend more time with her while we were in Dallas for a spell last year. We went to the State Fair of Texas together and ate a bunch of things that you can only get at the State Fair of Texas. (like chicken-fried bacon. WHAT?!?)

Anyway. SO glad that we could make it down there for their wedding. We had so much fun. Here are a few of my favorite shots from the weekend. (And yes, they are cutting the cake with a sword)more....

Jonathan!

We know Jonathan from long ago and upstate (not too far away)
Jonathan and Drake and I were all Sweeney Todd together my last year at Eastman. Really good times. The photo shoot was really good times too....
hee-hee... no but seriously. Here's his first pick:

Jonathan is in a new production of a musical version of Pride & Prejudice which was co-written by a great friend (from Eastman and Ohio Light Opera) Lindsay Baker. I can't wait to see it on Broadway! (It is going to Broadway!)
more to come...

Digging deep

Did you all hear that the Met is starting a subscription where you can pay-per-view or subscribe for unlimited downloads of historic video recordings?? SWEET!

Met in HD Times Square Broadcast

Drake and I went to see the Met HD broadcast of the opening night gala with Renee Fleming in Times Square. It felt so festive to see all of our big opera stars plastered all over Broad-way!photo by Ken Howard Metropolitan Opera

Of course all the talk on the internets was about Renee's designer gowns. I saw the very end of the Traviata (Christian LaCroix) and the Manon (Karl Lagerfeld for Chanel). Karl. C'mon! This is our big chance at mainstream glam! There should be no one more glamorous than an opera singer broadcast from an opening night gala plastered all over Times Square!! To me it looked like a very basic unembellished costume piece, one which I have seen come out of the tall cardboard boxes from Malabar for every show I've ever been in. At least give me some spangles on the neck or something, geez. At least she had a very dramatic cape for the second scene. That was a sweet cape, but the second she removed it in her brazen seduction of the (almost) priest, I was plunged into the gray dress doldrums again. She also lost a full 2 feet of height without the cape.

photo credit Metropolitan Opera
Is it silly of me to feel "popular" after seeing this broadcast? I feel distinctly happy with the genre of opera (and with Peter Gelb) for working the mainstream system. Renee Fleming is EVERYWHERE
these days! New Yorkers, you know what I'm talking about-- with her side-braids -hair-in-the-face-bedroom-eyes photo in every subway stop and on buses up and down the five boroughs. I dare say they could've picked a better picture... I hate hair in the face pictures.




Love the Doctor Atomic pics that I've seen! They're all over Williamsburg (which means that Doctor Atomic=trendy)

More Andrew

Andrew

Andrew came out to Williamsburg a couple weeks ago and we had a great studio/outdoor session. I feel like we're old friends already. We ran into him at the Met Broadcast of Opening Night in Times Square and sat together for the Manon! I missed the Cappriccio, which he said was definitely the best part of the broadcast.

I hear that the Met is starting a new streaming video subscription! like $150/year to see all of their historical recordings... worth it? I think so!

The others...

Here are some of Alissa's other shots. Fierce. (a word which feels tainted now, post-last-season's Project Runway overuse, but is intended sincerely)
Look! 3/4!!! Look out, opera world! we're shooting 3/4 now! Is it just me, or do these shots totally address the new kind of glam marketing toward which opera is heading?

Alissa

OK, so Alissa came to her headshot session ready to rock. She worked every single frame, and I'm not joking. Drake is working on the final edits and here is the first one. It was in the first ten frames of the shoot. We were just warming up! wait till you see the others....

Opera marketing

Of great interest for those of us looking into management. A great
article about marketability in light of HD broadcasts and such. "hot
people only vs. prima la voce"

http://www.artsjournal.com/lifesapitch/2008/08/talk-to-me-about-opera-ma
nagem.html

Why yes, there was a pie fight on my block tonight....

This is why I love NYC. Tonight after work there was a pie fight on our block. The Brick Theater is having an International Clown Theater Festival and it kicked off today with a parade that started in Union Square (where the noses were distributed) and ended in a pie fight on our block The main event had several seatings and devolved into an underwear-only pie fight, naturally.

Good Times

We went up to Lake Placid for Labor Day weekend for a visit with Ashley and her family and had SUCH a great time. We played Baci, we went swimming and water skiing, went on a hike, played with Ruby and had severe puppy envy, and didn't want to go home at all....

Williamsburg

Did a little engagement/headshot session today with Abla & Jeremy, up from Philly for the weekend.
I've been eyeing a site here for the past week that I wanted to try out, and this was the perfect opportunity... a little patch of country here in Brooklyn! In case you were wondering, no-- this is not a wheat field.












Here's the shot opened up....











And here's Abla's new color headshot. Drama! loves it!

"For relaxing times, make it Santori times..."

Something tells me that Drake (my husband) is going to walk away with a remarkable model's portfolio before too long.... :)

We spent last night testing out different studio set ups in our apartment, and here's my favorite.
hee hee....

Nature's hair fan

Shot Kristin & Liz in windy Tribeca on Wednesday-- there are a few inherent perils about shooting in Tribeca, which include
1. drippy air conditioners
2. perilous terrain
3. gusty breezes
4. security guards
But all of our risky behaviour was TOTALLY worth it!
Already finished the post-editing on Liz's kick-@ss new B&W....


Liz cooked us a delicious roast after the shoot.... (ummm, hellooo? a delicious roast!) and we had a lovely jury decide amongst the finalists. Kristin, here's one of my faves, but we'll wait for word from you before doing any post-processing. There are LOTS of great shots in there, wade through them patiently, and let us know if we should assemble a jury for you.... (facebook, maybe?)
UPDATE: here's Kristin's! (we picked the same one)

A lovely day :)

Well, our Central Park shoot went very well. I like to shoot friends together-- Mel and Kathleen seemed to put each other at ease very quickly. We found a lovely nook with magical light for our last site! They're gorgeous!! here's a peek...